Sleeping BeautyRetold
by skipdale
Summary: Ever bored with the traditional fairy tales? Well here's Sleeping Beauty sprinkle with some changing fairy dust! Enjoy! R&R!


Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there was a tiny kingdom. This kingdom, named 'Magic Kingdom' (the king and queen decided that it should have a name, so that is not just King Errol's kingdom. Next door was 'Animal Kingdom' as most of the inhabitants were animals and the kingdom to the south was 'Plant Kingdom' for most of the lands plants resided there; it was just common sense that King Errol's land should be called 'Magic Kingdom' as every other person living there had some magical tendency or was a fully fledged magical creature or being) was celebrating as the queen had finally given birth to a baby princess (the queen of Magic Kingdom was a fairy, and fairy pregnancies go on for 5 times longer than that of humans, so it seemed like it had gone on forever. Especially to the queen).

The ageing king and the young queen (who had of course married for wealth of status, he was a prince by birth and she was the daughter of a pig-farmer; he saw her and fell in love and she saw and pound sings glinted in her eyes), after consulting their P.R team, had decided that they would hold a competition, letting one of their subjects choose a name for the little girls (and hopefully covering the fact that they couldn't of one themselves by saying that the reason for the competition was because they wanted their subjects to feel like a part of the princess' life).

The said competition, name 'So you think that you can think of a name for the princess, who'll probably will be queen soon, because, quite frankly, the king'll kick the bucket pretty soon and the queen'll run to the hills not long after taking his money with her (apart from the princess' inheritance, obviously) not long after' (not exactly a name that rolls of the tongue, but the appointed competition organisers had thought of it after having one or three too many glasses of wine at the celebratory do held for the birth of the princess and it had slipped their mind to ask the opinion of the P.R Team and the king and queen), would go like this: each village/town/city/whatever must decide one name to put forward one name for the competition and chose one person to represent the town at the final (which, spookily, on a second take, looked exactly like a 'pimped up' christening). The person chosen had to be worthy, as the winner not only won £10 million for their hometown, but also won an all expenses paid, two week holiday to the Maldives.

Once all the applications had been sent in, the king and queen shortlisted 10 names to go through to the final, these were: Ariel, Aurora, Belle, Summer, Winter, Tiger-Lilly, Peaches, Trixibelle and Hannah.

The competition day was fine and bright, with a slight north-westerly wind coming from the Sea Of Rye. Ayrestone, the capital of Magic Kingdom was alive with activity from as early as dawn. St. Chad's Cathedral, where the final-stroke-christening was taking place, had been decorated to the queens own personal space (with, of course, help from her own personal interior designer, Sebastian) and in her view 'looked like a fairy land' ("I know," the king had replied, "It looks horrible." He obviously had momentarily forgotten that his own kingdom was pretty much a fairy land).

Finalists filled the front row of the Cathedral (the king and queen had their own private box, to the side, where they could look down upon their subjects; when the Cathedral wasn't being used for religious purposes, it was theatre, currently showing 'Jesus Christ Superstar', although 'Joseph and His Techi-Colour Dreamcoat' was next on the bill) and the other guests (some 1000+ of the king and queens closest friends ('closest' here means 'all the rich people within a two-hundred mile radius')) filled the rest of the pews.

On the altar/stage there were two game-show style panels (like the ones that you stand behind to guess the price of things on 'The Price Is Right') where contestants would stand (five on each side) and in the middle of the panels stood a podium (where it was presumed that the priest would stand), microphone and, naturally, the font.

The finalists were on tenterhooks as the priest walked out the vestry and stepped up onto the podium whilst some rousing music was pounding away in the background and the audience cheered.

"Hello?" the priest, Fr. Cyril, said into the microphone, which in return screeched tunelessly, causing the congregation to cover their ears.

Fr. Cyril tapped it to check if it would do it again, and when he thought it was safe to do so, and continued "Hello, and welcome to the final of 'So you think that you can think of a name for the princess, who'll probably will be queen soon, because, quite frankly, the king'll kick the bucket pretty soon and the queen'll run to the hills not long after taking his money with her (apart from the princess' inheritance, obviously) not long after'."

There was around of applause, that quickly turned to cheers as the music started up again and the priest began to call the contestants up, "With Ariel, it's Thorna, a single fairy from Los Andrea; with Aurora, it's Fedora, a human librarian from Bad Pumpernickle; with Belle, it's Eargon, a warlock from Drasleone; with Summer, it's Prince Kartik, a human prince from the Kingdom of Cheem…..'

Soon enough two witches (one from the north, another from the west), three fairies, two wizards, two humans and a warlock were standing behind the panels.

The priest spoke again, "Now let's get this party started! It's time to decide what the princess' name shall be! Round 1: Spelling Bee! Contestant Eragon and contestant Prince Kartik please come up to the mark and we'll begin!"

Both contestants came forward, stood facing each other, in front of the podium, Fr. Cyril then began reeling off words they were excepted to spell. This continued until one of them got it wrong (unfortunately Eragon missed out – well it was unfortunate for him), and then the rest of the contestants came out in couples to spell words, until five contestants had been knocked out.

Round 2 was 'Hangman', where the priest used a Guy Fawkes dummy to hang and another two contestants were kicked out of the competition (the guards there were abit rough).

The three final finalists were: an ugly old witch (the one from the west) that seemed to have a twitch in her left eye and an inclination to start laughing in a some what evil manner – sometime for no apparent reason; Kartik, the human prince (who himself only looked about three, goodness knows how he managed to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidious and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanonconiosis (a type of lung disease contracted by the inhalation of very fine silicious particles. See, you learn something new everyday!), there was also a rumour that he can do the 'Really Hard Crossword Times' quick crossword (which name really should be changed because it is really quite misleading, unless, of course, you believe that three and a half hours is quick to do a crossword on average) in under an hour – quite impressive!), who had been voted the prince readers would like to kiss, in a poll held in 'Mash Hits' magazine; and finally a fairy, who, according to the newspaper 'The Moon', has a tendency to get a little muddled in her spells (and in normal sentences) and to get the wrong end of the stick (one report said that a man had gone to see her for a cure for his baldness, she misinterpreted the meaning and turned him into an unimpressive, introvert coward – her bad). The three final names were: Summer (Kartik), Trixibelle (the witch) and Cream (the fairy).

The third and final round of the competition was where the contestants had to guess the word the priest was trying to explain (just like 'Articulate' if anybody has played that). The fairy was the first to go when she accidentally said 'cucumber' when she meant 'suffragettes', so only the prince and the witch were left.

The tension was mounting in the church as the witch and the prince stood face to face (the prince obviously had to stand on all three volumes of 'Incredibility Boring Things That You Don't Need To Know But Is In Here Anyway' – written by the king himself (as you can tell 'Magic Kingdom' had a bit of a thing for long titles – sent it Valentines cards and everything.)), for a quick-fire spelling round (I know, I lied about the third round being the final one, what you going to do about it?).

"Spell: Inconceivable."

"I-N-C-O-N-C-E-I-V-A-B-L-E" the little prince announced, followed by a polite round of applause when the priest said that it was correct, that was promptly ruined when his mother, Queen Conswaila shouted "That's my boy! Woo! Go Kartik! If you can't win this no-one can…apart from that witch….."

"Alright," the priest said turning towards the witch, "Spell: Googlemush."

"Can you please say that in a sentence?" the witch croaked in her finest attempt at a plausible 'nice' voice.

"Yes, of course: I am going to use googlemush in a sentence."

"_Yes, very helpful" _the witch thought, then attempted to spell the word she swore the priest had just made up "Ok, G-O-O-G-A-L-M-U-S-H."

"Ok and that concludes the quick-fire round," said Fr.Cyril, turning towards the audience, "the time has come to reveal the winner of 'So you think that you can think of a name for the princess, who'll probably will be queen soon, because, quite frankly, the king'll kick the bucket pretty soon and the queen'll run to the hills not long after taking his money with her (apart from the princess' inheritance, obviously) not long after'. The winner is…."

"Athm." Someone in the audience coughed in order to spur the priest back into talking (he had been silent, staring at the prince and the witch (who were getting a little unnerve) for the past 15 minutes, not the usual 15 seconds game-show hosts opt for), when he still didn't resume talking, the man who coughed before, coughed again and a third time, until eventually he threw himself into a full blown coughing fit.

"Would you like a drink of water?" the priest asked the man politely, snapping out of his thoughts.

"No, I was just coughing to get your attention."

"Any particular reason you need my attention? Do you need the toilet?"

"No," the man said, turning red slightly as the majority of the congregation turned round to look at him, "I wanted you to get on with it."

"Get on with what?" the priest asked, adopting a confused face, clearly showing everyone that he completely forgotten why he was there.

"Telling us who is the winner to find the name for the princess," the man prompted, "The winner name is in the envelope in your hand." He said seeing the look of bewilderment on the Fr. Cyril's face.

Looking down to his hand, Fr. Cyril was greeted with the sight of a large golden envelope that a stage-hand had given him some 16 minutes before, "Ah, yes! The winner of 'So you think that you can think of a name for the princess, who'll probably will be queen soon, because, quite frankly, the king'll kick the bucket pretty soon and the queen'll run to the hills not long after taking his money with her (apart from the princess' inheritance, obviously) not long after' is.." there was another long pause, that was thankfully resumed after the usual 15 seconds, when the priest concluded, "Kartik! The princess' name shall be Summer!"

Saying that the witch was a little upset that she didn't win, could be an entry for 'Understatement of the Year' , a competition held every year in Magic Kingdom and it would probably be a dead cert to win. The witch herself down onto the marbled floor of the Cathedral (with a thud and an "OW!") and started thrashing about, hitting her fists on the ground and kicking her legs and generally acting like a terrible toddler having a tantrum, screaming "I SHOULD OF WON, I SHOULD HAVE WO-ON!"

The king and queen came down from their box, the queen carrying 'Summer' with her, and came before the priest and the font. They then called up their choosen godmothers (they had chosen 3 fairies, all of whom the queen had gone to school with and three godfathers (all human, as they had gone to the same 'Polo' club as the king).

The princess' Godfathers gave her their gifts first, these were gold, frankincense and myrrh. The first godmother gave Summer the gift of beauty, the second the gift of charm, but as the third came to give her gift, the witch snapped out of her tantrum, barged past the fairies, towards the little girl.

"My gift to this young girl is that on her 18th birthday, she shall prick her finger on a needle whilst she is stitching a hole in her gown and she shall fall into a deep sleep, of which only her true loves first kiss will wake her from." With a flash of green light the spell was cast and the witch disappeared.


End file.
